Maze of Death Read online

  ‘Indeed, Master Alec,’ he said, but the look on his face was one of disapproval. ‘Somebody clearly has a lot more money than sense.’

  Alec couldn’t help but grin. He knew that the dour Yorkshireman had been raised in grinding poverty and, even after all these years, it was hard for him to approve of anyone spending large amounts of cash on what he thought of as ‘fancies’.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind a trip on her,’ said Alec. ‘I bet with the wind in her sails she can move at a fair old clip.’

  ‘Hmm. They won’t get there any faster,’ said Coates.

  Alec thought about it for a moment. ‘Yes they will,’ he said. ‘They’ll get wherever they’re going in record time.’

  ‘Perhaps, but will they be any happier for the experience?’

  ‘I imagine they’ll be over the moon,’ said Alec. ‘Coates, lighten up a bit, we’re supposed to be on holiday.’

  ‘Hmm. If trooping around archaeological sites in the shadow of an active volcano is your idea of a holiday, then yes, I suppose we are.’

  Alec smiled and leaned a little closer. ‘So, what would be your perfect break?’ he asked. ‘Go on, money no object. How would you spend your time?’

  Coates looked blank. ‘I’ve never really had a holiday,’ he said. ‘Unless you count the wild adventures I’ve had in your company, which frankly can’t be anybody’s idea of fun. No, just give me the radio and an unlimited supply of crossword puzzles and I’d be perfectly content.’ He returned his attention to his paper. ‘I’m only stuck on one clue,’ he said. ‘Not exercising appropriate caution. Eight letters, beginning with R.’

  ‘Reckless?’ suggested Alec and Coates gave him a look.

  ‘Hmm, how ironic. Well, that’s exactly what we’re not going to be on this trip,’ he said and filled in the answer.

  Ethan Wade wandered over to them. He was dressed in khaki shirt and trousers and his Stetson was pulled down low to shade his blue eyes. It occurred to Alec that you could take the man out of America, but you couldn’t take America out of the man. Ethan was, as ever, a cowboy in an unfamiliar setting, right down to the Colt .45 he wore in a leather holster on his right hip.

  ‘Seen that beauty across the way?’ Ethan asked them, in his slow drawl.

  Alec nodded. ‘We were just talking about her,’ he said. ‘You’d have to be very rich to sail around in something like that.’

  ‘Or very vain,’ added Coates, with a scowl.

  ‘I’m trying to make out the name on the prow,’ said Ethan. ‘Something beginning with A?’

  ‘Ariadne,’ said Alec, whose eyesight was that bit keener. He thought for a moment, trying to recall his lessons on the classics. ‘The daughter of King Minos of Crete, I think. Hey, you don’t suppose it’s a king who owns that yacht, do you?’

  ‘I was just asking Christos about it,’ said Ethan. ‘Reckons he’s seen it here a couple of times before, but he doesn’t know anyone around here who could afford something like that. All he can say is that someone’s got more money than brains!’

  Alec laughed. ‘That’s just what Coates said. Maybe you have some Cretan blood in you, Coates,’ he suggested.

  ‘Christos is clearly a sensible fellow,’ said Coates with a shrug.

  The fishing boat was coming in to the jetty now. Christos cut the engine and Ethan grabbed the mooring rope. He jumped nimbly ashore and tied the boat to a wooden post, then came back aboard. Everyone grabbed their luggage and began to disembark.

  There was quite a crowd on the stone jetty – fishermen unloading wooden boxes filled with glistening sardines and squid, travellers coming off ferries laden with luggage, workmen loading and unloading wooden boxes from cargo boats.

  ‘We’ll need to make enquiries about somewhere to stay,’ Coates observed.

  Ethan shook his head. ‘No need,’ he said. He waved a little slip of paper with some writing on it. ‘Christos wrote down the details for this place, a little taverna on the road south out of Heraklion. His cousin’s the landlord. Christos says it’s clean, cheap and bug-free. And his cousin brews the best raki in Crete.’

  ‘How delightful,’ said Coates. ‘Wouldn’t we be better off checking into a hotel in the town centre? I’ve heard the Megaron is supposed to be the most comfortable hotel on the island.’

  ‘No, let’s save some money,’ said Alec. ‘We don’t need to be lording it in a fancy hotel. And you know Father will be delighted if we go home with change in our pockets.’ He reached across to shake hands with Christos and thanked him for bringing them safely across from the mainland. Then, turning away, he looked around the bustling port and eventually spotted an old man, sitting at the reins of a pony cart, waiting across the road. ‘I think that must be the local taxi service,’ he said brightly. ‘Come on, let’s see if he’ll take us.’ Alec hoisted his rucksack onto his back and led the way along the jetty.

  ‘Let’s not forget,’ Coates shouted after him, ‘as your father was so keen to remind us, it’s the adults who’ll be making all the decisions on this trip.’

  ‘Yeah,’ added Ethan, hurrying after them. ‘That would be a novelty.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lieutenant Sideras

  THE OLD MAN in the pony cart studied the address that Ethan handed to him and nodded. He was elderly with a huge grey moustache and was dressed in traditional Cretan style, with a black sariki scarf wrapped around his head, a black shirt, jodhpurs and long leather boots. Alec noticed the curved knife tucked into his belt and realized that despite his advanced years, this wasn’t a man to be trifled with. He looked as hard as nails. He studied the three travellers for a moment, his face expressionless, and then waved them up into the cart.

  ‘Er . . . yes . . . how much, please?’ asked Coates, ever cautious about money, but Alec and Ethan were already throwing their rucksacks into the back and clambering up onto the wooden benches. He had no option but to shrug his shoulders and follow them. The old man produced a whip and snapped it above the pony’s head. It started off at a fair clip, heading quickly around the port, passing by the old Venetian castle. Alec dug a travel book out of his rucksack and told his two companions a little bit about the history of Heraklion – how there had been a port here since 2000 BC, how the city had been founded by the Saracens in 824 AD and how over the centuries it had been conquered in turn by the Byzantines, the Venetians and the Ottoman Empire.

  ‘It finally came back under Greek rule in 1913,’ he told them.

  ‘That’s what I like about travelling with you, kid,’ said Ethan. ‘It’s a regular education.’ He looked around at the sedate white-painted houses and the lush palm trees that lined the streets. ‘At least there are no bloodthirsty tribes around here just itching to cut our hearts out.’

  ‘If it’s all the same to you,’ said Coates firmly, ‘I’d rather not be reminded of what went on in Mexico. And don’t go tempting fate, Mr Wade. It’s been my general experience that wherever there is trouble of any kind, Master Alec is sure to attract it, sooner or later.’

  Ethan laughed at Coates’s grim expression. ‘Aw, come on,’ he said. ‘Look at this place! It’s paradise. What kind of trouble could we run into here?’

  As if in answer to the question, there was a distant rumble on the far horizon and a huge gout of smoke rose into the clear air as the volcano on Santorini gave vent to its pent-up power.

  ‘Are you sure that thing’s safe?’ said Coates, looking glumly in the direction of the smoking island. ‘Only it’s sounding decidedly active to me.’

  But before Alec could answer, the driver snapped his whip again, the pony picked up speed and the cart rattled briskly out of Heraklion and onto the road leading south.

  The sun was setting by the time they reached the taverna – a handsome, white-painted building set some distance back from the main road and surrounded by an olive grove. While Alec and Ethan lifted down the luggage, Coates arranged for the same driver to pick them up the following morning and take them to Knossos. Since
the driver spoke little English, this involved Coates going through a pantomime of gestures and actions, but the man seemed to understand what he wanted.

  The three companions collected their luggage and went inside. There were a few people sitting at tables, eating an evening meal and drinking large glasses of raki. Alec noticed they all seemed to be locals – something that his father had always told him was a good sign. Christos’s cousin turned out to be a big, red-faced man with a walrus moustache, who greeted the new arrivals in heavily accented English and told them that his name was Yannis.

  ‘We need rooms for the night,’ said Coates, talking very slowly, as if to a three-year-old. ‘Christos sent us, he said you might have rooms?’

  ‘I have one room,’ said Yannis. ‘Other’s taken.’

  ‘One? Oh dear, I’m not at all sure that will be suitable,’ said Coates.

  ‘No worry, room very big,’ insisted Yannis. ‘You come look.’

  He led them up a flight of rickety stairs to a large room at the back of the taverna, which contained two single beds. It was very simple, just a couple of peices of wooden furniture, but it looked clean enough, and when Yannis announced the price, even Coates had to admit that it was a bargain.

  ‘But there are three of us,’ he said. ‘And only two beds.’

  ‘Relax,’ Ethan told him. ‘I’ll bunk down on the floor, I sleep better that way.’

  Alec gave Yannis the thumbs-up and he grinned, then nodded. ‘I go now,’ he said. ‘Food downstairs when you ready.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Alec, as Yannis left the room. ‘I could eat a horse.’

  ‘That’s probably what they’ll serve us here,’ said Coates gloomily. ‘Honestly, I don’t know why we couldn’t have checked into a proper hotel. The Megaron is famous for its roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.’

  ‘I didn’t come to Crete to eat English food,’ Alec told him. ‘And you must be getting soft in your old age. You normally disapprove of spending one penny more than is necessary.’

  ‘Yes, but after our time in the Mexican jungle, I’ve grown more attached to my creature comforts.’

  ‘I suppose we did rough it a bit out there,’ admitted Alec.

  He was speaking, of course, of the previous summer’s escapade, when the three of them had been passengers on a plane that had crashed into a remote area of rainforest in Veracruz. There, they had found Colotlán – a lost Aztec city that had remained unchanged for five hundred years. It was there too that they had nearly lost their lives as victims in an ancient blood-sacrifice.

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ said Coates. ‘That was beyond rough.’ He glanced at Ethan. ‘We were all lucky to survive the experience – and how we didn’t come to be sacked for that disaster, I’ll never know.’

  Ethan grinned. ‘We brought Alec back to his father, safe and sound,’ he said. ‘He could hardly sack us after that, could he?’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Coates shrugged. He looked at Alec enquiringly. ‘You’re sure you’re entirely over that injury?’ He pointed at Alec’s chest where the poisoned arrow had so nearly claimed his life.

  ‘I’m fine now,’ Alec assured him. ‘It bothers me a little if I’ve been running hard. But the doctors say that will fade in time.’

  Coates’s face was grim, as though he was reliving the incident. ‘I thought you were done for,’ he said. ‘I honestly did.’

  ‘That’s not what you told me at the time,’ said Alec with a smile.

  ‘Well of course not. I was trying to keep your spirits up.’

  ‘Yeah, you’d be good at that,’ said Ethan wryly. ‘Come on, we can unpack all our stuff later. Let’s get downstairs and sample some of the local grub. We haven’t eaten since breakfast.’

  Down in the taverna, Yannis seated them at a table and hurried off, returning moments later with an earthenware bottle, a jug of water and three glasses. He set these down in front of his guests with a flourish and said: ‘Raki. I brew myself. Best on the island.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Ethan. He poured out a glass for himself and Coates, then filled Alec’s glass from the water jug.

  ‘You might at least have let me have a taste of the raki,’ said Alec.

  ‘No way,’ said Ethan. ‘You don’t get to drink alcohol until you’re twenty-one. That’s the law.’

  ‘In England,’ Alec pointed out. ‘There’s no official age limit in Greece. And besides, if we were going by the laws of our own countries, you shouldn’t be drinking alcohol at all. I seem to remember there’s this little thing in America called “prohibition”!’

  ‘Why do you think I don’t live there any more?’ laughed Ethan. He lifted his glass to his lips and took an experimental sip. Then his face crumpled into an expression of disgust. ‘Wow, that’s strong,’ he said.

  Alec shook his head. He took the jug of water from the table and added a generous measure to Ethan and Coates’s glasses, turning the liquid milky white.

  ‘Everybody knows this is how you drink raki,’ he said. ‘The locals call it lion’s milk.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Ethan tried it again. ‘That is better. What’s that liquorice flavour?’

  ‘It’s aniseed,’ said Alec. ‘The Greeks use it in many of their drinks.’

  ‘And how do you know so much about the subject?’ asked Coates suspiciously.

  ‘It’s called research,’ explained Alec. ‘You should try it some time. It pays to know something about the country you’re visiting.’

  Coates frowned. ‘It’s possible to take research too far,’ he said. ‘I’d be happier with a glass of pale ale.’ He glanced impatiently around the taverna. ‘Do you suppose that fellow is going to bring us a menu soon?’ he asked. ‘I’m starting to get very hungry.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s the kind of place where they give you a menu,’ Alec told him. ‘Most likely they’ll just bring whatever happens to be the dish of the day.’

  ‘But . . . supposing it’s something I don’t like?’ protested Coates.

  As it happened, Coates needn’t have worried. Yannis reappeared with three generous helpings of stifado, a thick meaty stew made with rabbit, onions and tomatoes. This was served with pitta bread and a delicious Greek salad with chunks of feta cheese and juicy black olives. Realizing just how hungry they were, they ate ravenously.

  Just as they were finishing, the door of the taverna opened and a man dressed in a distinctive uniform stepped inside. He had a black moustache, the ends of which had been waxed to points. He wore a flat-topped pillbox hat, a bright-red waistcoat, a blue military-style jacket and strange-looking baggy trousers that were tucked into long leather boots. He strode across to the bar and talked to Yannis for a few moments.

  ‘What uniform is that?’ muttered Ethan. ‘Army?’

  ‘I think he’s a gendarme,’ replied Alec. ‘A police officer.’

  ‘I thought gendarmes were French,’ said Ethan.

  ‘Yes, same word, but they use it here too. I’m not sure why.’

  Just then, Yannis said something to the uniformed man and he turned to look towards Alec’s table with apparent interest. He nodded to Yannis and came over.

  ‘Yannis tells me you people are English,’ he stated politely. He spoke the language well, but with a pronounced Greek accent.

  ‘These two are,’ said Ethan. ‘I’m American.’

  The police officer bowed his head and clicked his heels. ‘Lieutenant Lukas Sideras of the Cretan Gendarmerie,’ he said. He stared thoughtfully at the pistol on Ethan’s hip. ‘I hope you have a permit to carry that weapon.’

  ‘Sure have,’ said Ethan. He reached into his back pocket and handed the papers to Lieutenant Sideras.

  The policeman examined them for a moment and, seemingly satisfied, handed them back. ‘May I enquire where you have come from and what is the purpose of your visit?’

  ‘We came over by boat from Athens,’ explained Alec. ‘My father works at the British Embassy there. We’ve just come to have a look at Knossos.’<
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  ‘Ah yes.’ Lieutenant Sideras nodded. ‘Like many before you. Please forgive my intrusion, but . . . may I ask if any of you have seen this man on your travels?’ He had reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a small photograph. He gave it to Alec, who looked at it then passed it to the others. It showed a young man, perhaps in his early twenties, clean shaven and smiling at the camera.

  ‘He is a fellow Englishman,’ explained Lieutenant Sideras. ‘His name is Peter Travis. Do any of you recognize him?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Coates. ‘What has he done?’

  ‘Done?’ Lieutenant Sideras looked puzzled.

  ‘Well, I’m assuming if the police are looking for him, he must have committed a crime.’

  ‘Ah no, nothing like that. The young man has . . .’ He paused as though searching for the right word. ‘How do you say it?’ he muttered. ‘Disappeared. Vanished. He came to the island a couple of months ago; his first real trip away from home. I spoke to Yannis back then and he remembered that this same Mr Travis was here one night. Yannis says he had drinks and then went outside for air. It would appear nobody has seen him since.’

  ‘That’s odd,’ said Ethan. ‘You think maybe he had an accident or something?’ He lifted his glass of raki. ‘If he was drinking this stuff, it would be all too easy to lose his footing and fall into a ditch.’

  Lieutenant Sideras shrugged. ‘Is possible of course,’ he said. ‘But no body has been found. And this was two months ago.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘The chief of police receive letter from parents asking for our help in this matter. It seems Mr Travis was sending home postcards and so forth and then suddenly . . . nothing. Of course, they are going out of their minds with the worry. The case was assigned to me. I have made enquiries all over the island, but it is as if he was just . . . swallowed up.’

  There was a silence. Lieutenant Sideras stayed where he was, as though he had more to say, so Coates invited him to pull up a seat, which he did. Then Ethan called for another glass and poured the lieutenant a shot of raki.